page_title: Ode on a Grecian Urn
section_title: Poem
hierarchical_section_title: Ode on a Grecian Urn / Poem
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: John Keats: Ode on a Grecian urn. Overgeschreven door George Keats, 1820. English: John Keats: Ode on a Grecian urn. Copied by George Keats, 1820
context_page_description: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819, first published anonymously in Annals of the Fine Arts for 1819.
  The poem is one of the "Great Odes of 1819", which also include "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "Ode to Psyche". Keats found existing forms in poetry unsatisfactory for his purpose, and in this collection he presented a new development of the ode form. He was inspired to write the poem after reading two articles by English artist and writer Benjamin Haydon. Through his awareness of other writings in this field and his first-hand acquaintance with the Elgin Marbles, Keats perceived the idealism and representation of Greek virtues in classical Greek art, and his poem draws upon these insights.
  In five stanzas of ten lines each, the poet addresses an ancient Grecian urn, describing and discoursing upon the images depicted on it. In particular he reflects upon two scenes, one in which a lover pursues his beloved, and another where villagers and a priest gather to perform a sacrifice.
context_section_description: The poem begins with the narrator's silencing the urn by describing it as the "bride of quietness", which allows him to speak for it using his own impressions. The narrator addresses the urn by saying:
  Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
  
      Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, (lines 1–2)
  The urn is a "foster-child of silence and slow time" because it was created from stone and made by the hand of an artist who did not communicate through words. As stone, time has little effect on it and ageing is such a slow process that it can be seen as an eternal piece of artwork. The urn is an external object capable of producing a story outside the time of its creation, and because of this ability the poet labels it a "sylvan historian" that tells its story through its beauty:
  Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
  
      A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
  
  What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
  
      Of deities or mortals, or of both,
  
          In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
  
      What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
  
  What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
  
          What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? (lines 3–10)
  The questions presented in these lines are too ambiguous to allow the reader to understand what is taking place in the images on the urn, but elements of it are revealed: there is a pursuit with a strong sexual component. The melody accompanying the pursuit is intensified in the second stanza:
  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
  
      Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
  
  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
  
      Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: (lines 11–14)
  There is a hint of a paradox in that indulgence causes someone to be filled with desire and that music without a sound is desired by the soul. There is a stasis that prohibits the characters on the urn from ever being fulfilled:
          Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
  
  Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
  
      She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
  
          For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! (lines 17–20)
  In the third stanza, the narrator begins by speaking to a tree, which will ever hold its leaves and will not "bid the Spring adieu". The paradox of life versus lifelessness extends beyond the lover and the fair lady and takes a more temporal shape as three of the ten lines begin with the words "for ever". The unheard song never ages and the pipes are able to play forever, which leads the lovers, nature, and all involved to be:
          For ever panting, and for ever young;
  
  All breathing human passion far above,
  
      That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
  
          A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. (lines 27–30)
  A new paradox arises in these lines because these immortal lovers are experiencing a living death. To overcome this paradox of merged life and death, the poem shifts to a new scene with a new perspective. The fourth stanza opens with the sacrifice of a virgin cow, an image that appeared in the Elgin Marbles, Claude Lorrain's Sacrifice to Apollo, and Raphael's The Sacrifice at Lystra
  Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
  
      To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
  
  Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
  
      And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
  
  What little town by river or sea shore,
  
      Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
  
          Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
  
  And, little town, thy streets for evermore
  
      Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
  
          Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. (lines 31–40)
  All that exists in the scene is a procession of individuals, and the narrator conjectures on the rest. The altar and town exist as part of a world outside art, and the poem challenges the limitations of art through describing their possible existence. The questions are unanswered because there is no one who can ever know the true answers, as the locations are not real. The final stanza begins with a reminder that the urn is a piece of eternal artwork:
  O Attic shape! Fair attitud
caption: First known copy of Ode on a Grecian Urn, transcribed by George Keats in 1820
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2019:07:19 19:36:26", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "11237", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:07:19 19:30:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:07:19 19:30:08", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "26", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "26", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}